Spoilers Middle Earth/The Hobbit/ Lord of the Rings

[Bodhitree]

The same effort and respect put into the Lord of the Rings movies was not put into The Hobbit trilogy. It was a cash grabbing banking on the success of Lord of the Rings. Same thing goes for Rings of Power which did an amazing job of being even worse than the Hobbit trilogy.

I can’t speak to Rings of Power, as I haven’t watched it and don’t intend to sub to Amazon Prime for it. But from what I’ve seen of it (trailers and a few short docu’s) it isn’t stellar.

But I think you’ll find The Hobbit trilogy does have its fans, and roughly equalled the Lord of the Rings in box office receipts. Personally I acknowledge it does deviate from the book, but it largely stays true in spirit, and I’ve very much enjoyed watching and rewatching them on occasion.

 

[wonderings]

I can’t speak to Rings of Power, as I haven’t watched it and don’t intend to sub to Amazon Prime for it. But from what I’ve seen of it (trailers and a few short docu’s) it isn’t stellar.

But I think you’ll find The Hobbit trilogy does have its fans, and roughly equalled the Lord of the Rings in box office receipts. Personally I acknowledge it does deviate from the book, but it largely stays true in spirit, and I’ve very much enjoyed watching and rewatching them on occasion.

I watched the first season of Rings of Power and that was enough. It is horrible and the work of writers who think they can do something better than Tolkien himself. The message I would give you is don't watch it.

I am sure The Hobbit movies has fans, all the slop Disney has been spitting out for Star Wars and Marvel also has fans. Fandom is actually ruining so many of these good stories and series. Fans who go crazy for even a mention of a character they love, or to just get a glimpse of them. There is no care about the story and a coherent story. These stories are easily ripped apart and shows how poor and lazily they have been done. And this is not nit picking, they literally make no sense.

 

[Huntn]

The Hobbit movie trilogy is terrible. Tolkien would be furious with the adaptation based on his own writing and thoughts on this very subject. The movie DOES deserve strong criticism because they took a much loved story and went at creating 3 films without zero effort. There is tons of evidence of this, Peter Jackson himself said day to day they sometimes did not even know what they were filming. He came in to try and save the movies as the original director backed out. The same effort and respect put into the Lord of the Rings movies was not put into The Hobbit trilogy. It was a cash grabbing banking on the success of Lord of the Rings. Same thing goes for Rings of Power which did an amazing job of being even worse than the Hobbit trilogy.

Yes films cannot go 1:1 with a story from print to film, they are 2 very different mediums for story telling. One is smart, engaging, pulls you in and the other is dumbed down so anyone can get the most minimal basics of the story. If you actually like Tolkiens work I have no clue how you could like The Hobbit trilogy. There were of course some good things about it, very few. Smaug would be the highlight in my option. Cumberbatch did a great job as the dragon without a doubt. The dwarves did not look like dwarves, they looked (for the most part) like regular men who were just shrunk down. They created characters were none were needed, romance between an elf and a dwarf where none was needed. All in all I think they missed the beauty of the simple story Tolkien wrote that moved the hearts and minds of millions.

Money grab, likely studio pressure, give us another LOTRs!!! I did not like the inserted climax in the the first one nor did I like the overal portrayal of the Goblins.

 

[Bodhitree]

You probably would have disliked the planned sequence with Arwen Evenstar fighting at Helm’s Deep alongside Aragorn (apparently flashes of the red dress she was to wear can be seen in some effects shots), or the storyboarded sequence of the final battle at The Black Gate where Sauron emerges to fight in physical form and goes toe to toe with Aragorn only to be defeated (stabbed in the midrif with Anduril) at the moment the Ring is destroyed. Sauron was replaced by a Cave Troll at the last moment during shooting.

Just two moments that were planned to deviate from cannon in the original LotR trilogy, which they decided against including at the last moment.

 

[Bodhitree]

I saw it remarked on YouTube that Tolkien’s original intention when building Middle Earth was to craft a mythology for England, his home country. I find this interesting because the mythology serves as a backdrop for the events of the Lord of the Rings, and the history of Middle Earth is only referred to in passing.

The events that are described in the Silmarillion — about Iluvatar, the first cause of the world, and the Valar, the gods who live in the west, and the Silmarils, the jewels which contain the light of the world trees — are generally not even talked about but form this rich backstory which gives the world this sense of being ancient.

 

[scubachap]

I saw it remarked on YouTube that Tolkien’s original intention when building Middle Earth was to craft a mythology for England, his home country. I find this interesting because the mythology serves as a backdrop for the events of the Lord of the Rings, and the history of Middle Earth is only referred to in passing.

The events that are described in the Silmarillion — about Iluvatar, the first cause of the world, and the Valar, the gods who live in the west, and the Silmarils, the jewels which contain the light of the world trees — are generally not even talked about but form this rich backstory which gives the world this sense of being ancient.

Yes, absolutely. Tolkien wasn't really an author in terms of someone who simply set out to write books and tell a specific story. By his own admission he was trying to find a mythology for England and the English, a sort of founding story that bound together language and landscape. Many who look for founding myths go to the archaeology and build from there (Sutton Hoo was discovered in the very late 30's so was contemporary with his work) but he felt this myth could be found hidden in the roots of old English (Anglo Saxon), Welsh*, Norse and Finnish languages and the stories and legends from those cultures. AFAIK he wasn't trying to write a story, he was trying to reveal something hidden. He spent much of his time interrogating these languages, maps and place names to look for a hidden 'truth'.

So, to think of him as a conventional author I think misunderstands his motivations - his stories were built out of word play (the books are stuffed with it - eg. frōd (OE) = wise, prudent, skilful etc etc) and map building, a thoroughly Anglo-Saxon (in the historical sense) way of seeing the world. While much is made these days of pre-medieval history in terms of the Norse and Celts (check out those 'O'rish' hobbits in the abortion that was Rings of Power) he was a professor of Anglo-Saxon and his world is one of Beowulf, the Wanderer and the Exeter book of Riddles. It's not the world of CS Lewis, Mallory's Arthur or the Victorian Celtic world. To my mind the various books are a series of vignettes that explore this world and the narrative such that it is - just strings it together. The plots are of subservient to this word revealing (not building I think), mapping and general experience.

I think this why that since the great original film trilogy (which stuck pretty closely to the books and didn't try to be too clever) pretty much all the adaptions have become increasingly disastrous as the people writing it tend to see it as a sort of Marvel franchise where they can mine and rewrite a coherent 'lore' rather than play with what it is, a pseudo pre-christian religous work, they just don't understand or want to understand it.

* Despite enjoying the feel of Welsh and using it in his work he had very little time for Celtic myth and legend, feeling that it lacked the required terroir for his world.

 

[Bodhitree]

Thank you, scubachap, that makes a lot of sense. I think part of the reason for the decrease in authenticity and quality from the high starting bar of the original film trilogy is the increasing sparseness of the source material. For Rings of Power they were trying to build multiple seasons of a tv series from a few slim chapters of The Silmarillion — these writers are not Tolkien or of the time in history in which Tolkien wrote his books, and it makes sense to me that they are going to insert themes of their time.

For example the whole ‘race’ issue. Tolkien’s thinking was shaped by 1930’s thinking on kingdoms and races of men. Nowadays there is pressure to be inclusive, to add dark-skinned elves and hobbits and dwarves. The media empire that is Amazon Prime wouldn’t want to exclude a large viewer demographic for just “source accuracy” reasons. It just jars with my sense of the original text.

It would have been interesting to sit in on the negotiations between the Tolkien Estate and Amazon, because if anyone understood these issues it would have been Tolkien’s heirs. In the end I guess the money talked the loudest, and the Amazon execs ended up paying for what they wanted, a large measure of creative control.

 

[wonderings]

Thank you, scubachap, that makes a lot of sense. I think part of the reason for the decrease in authenticity and quality from the high starting bar of the original film trilogy is the increasing sparseness of the source material. For Rings of Power they were trying to build multiple seasons of a tv series from a few slim chapters of The Silmarillion — these writers are not Tolkien or of the time in history in which Tolkien wrote his books, and it makes sense to me that they are going to insert themes of their time.

For example the whole ‘race’ issue. Tolkien’s thinking was shaped by 1930’s thinking on kingdoms and races of men. Nowadays there is pressure to be inclusive, to add dark-skinned elves and hobbits and dwarves. The media empire that is Amazon Prime wouldn’t want to exclude a large viewer demographic for just “source accuracy” reasons. It just jars with my sense of the original text.

It would have been interesting to sit in on the negotiations between the Tolkien Estate and Amazon, because if anyone understood these issues it would have been Tolkien’s heirs. In the end I guess the money talked the loudest, and the Amazon execs ended up paying for what they wanted, a large measure of creative control.

Unless I am mistaken Amazon does not have the rights to anything in the Silmarilion, they paid a fortune for the appendixes. They have horrible writers trying to shove today's values into a masterpiece. I think it is clear that wherever they try and do this the shows and movies fail. If a story is forced to have certain things then the author is not free to write and are steered by the politics, and that makes for horrible storytelling as we see with Marvel, Star Wars and Rings of Power.

I have no faith in the Tolkien estate, though hard to blame them from accept $250 million for the rights of the appendixes. Don't think they needed the money, but still that is a tough number to turn down. Googling says the estate is worth around $500 million. So if half of that is Rings of Power money then they were doing pretty good. The one thing that cannot be changed is masterpieces themselves. No matter what slop they dish out it does not change The Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings in print. I don't subject myself to fandom and prefer to stay with what made me love these stories in the first place, not the cheap counterfeit knock offs that they try to pass off as part of Tolkiens work.

 

[Mousse]

You probably would have disliked the planned sequence with Arwen Evenstar fighting at Helm’s Deep alongside Aragorn (apparently flashes of the red dress she was to wear can be seen in some effects shots), or the storyboarded sequence of the final battle at The Black Gate where Sauron emerges to fight in physical form and goes toe to toe with Aragorn only to be defeated (stabbed in the midrif with Anduril) at the moment the Ring is destroyed.

I would have immediately give the movies a hard pass if they had included that. Deviating too far from the original source material is a cardinal sin in my book.😡😡😡 This is why I passed on the Hobbit movie trilogy.🤮

Sauron never appeared in the book trilogy. Having him appear at the climax...no, just no. That would almost be as bad as the Earthsea miniseries where they made almost everyone white and shipped Tenar and Ged.😠

 

[Huntn]

You probably would have disliked the planned sequence with Arwen Evenstar fighting at Helm’s Deep alongside Aragorn (apparently flashes of the red dress she was to wear can be seen in some effects shots), or the storyboarded sequence of the final battle at The Black Gate where Sauron emerges to fight in physical form and goes toe to toe with Aragorn only to be defeated (stabbed in the midrif with Anduril) at the moment the Ring is destroyed. Sauron was replaced by a Cave Troll at the last moment during shooting.

Just two moments that were planned to deviate from cannon in the original LotR trilogy, which they decided against including at the last moment.

Absolutely, BARF! 🙃

 

[Huntn]

Unless I am mistaken Amazon does not have the rights to anything in the Silmarilion, they paid a fortune for the appendixes. They have horrible writers trying to shove today's values into a masterpiece. I think it is clear that wherever they try and do this the shows and movies fail. If a story is forced to have certain things then the author is not free to write and are steered by the politics, and that makes for horrible storytelling as we see with Marvel, Star Wars and Rings of Power.

I have no faith in the Tolkien estate, though hard to blame them from accept $250 million for the rights of the appendixes. Don't think they needed the money, but still that is a tough number to turn down. Googling says the estate is worth around $500 million. So if half of that is Rings of Power money then they were doing pretty good. The one thing that cannot be changed is masterpieces themselves. No matter what slop they dish out it does not change The Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings in print. I don't subject myself to fandom and prefer to stay with what made me love these stories in the first place, not the cheap counterfeit knock offs that they try to pass off as part of Tolkiens work.

Rings of Power did not really do it for me, did not get past Season 1, but watched the whole thing. It’s likely the magic is gone. Maybe, I’ll break out the Hobbit…to resurrect it. 😊

 

[Huntn]

Thank you, scubachap, that makes a lot of sense. I think part of the reason for the decrease in authenticity and quality from the high starting bar of the original film trilogy is the increasing sparseness of the source material. For Rings of Power they were trying to build multiple seasons of a tv series from a few slim chapters of The Silmarillion — these writers are not Tolkien or of the time in history in which Tolkien wrote his books, and it makes sense to me that they are going to insert themes of their time.

For example the whole ‘race’ issue. Tolkien’s thinking was shaped by 1930’s thinking on kingdoms and races of men. Nowadays there is pressure to be inclusive, to add dark-skinned elves and hobbits and dwarves. The media empire that is Amazon Prime wouldn’t want to exclude a large viewer demographic for just “source accuracy” reasons. It just jars with my sense of the original text.

It would have been interesting to sit in on the negotiations between the Tolkien Estate and Amazon, because if anyone understood these issues it would have been Tolkien’s heirs. In the end I guess the money talked the loudest, and the Amazon execs ended up paying for what they wanted, a large measure of creative control.

If the Estate of such works was worried about their stewardship of this source material, it seems like there is a choice to preserve some standards or just take the money. Does the estate have any artistic say over anything Amazon does with their purchased rights, I wonder.

 

[Bodhitree]

It looks from the credits as if Amazon started with their own creative team. I expected to see some involvement by Peter Jackson and maybe Philippa Boyens on the exec producer side, as they would likely be trusted by the Tolkien Estate, but that doesn’t seem to have happened. Instead we see J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay come in as showrunners and no less than 10 exec producers, I didn’t recognise any names from The Lord of the Rings.

For the Lord of the Rings, they were quite clever to contract visual artists like Alan Lee, who had done the illustrations for the Illustrated Lord of the Rings a number of years ago. I wonder if these people continued this work for Rings of Power, I expect not.

 

[scubachap]

It looks from the credits as if Amazon started with their own creative team.

For the Lord of the Rings, they were quite clever to contract visual artists like Alan Lee, who had done the illustrations for the Illustrated Lord of the Rings a number of years ago. I wonder if these people continued this work for Rings of Power, I expect not.

I always considered Christopher Tolkien and Brian Sibley to be the real guardians of the work but as Christopher has now been dead for a while and despite Brian’s expertise AFAIK he was excluded from any involvement with the Amazon production. Stuff I read a while ago seemed to suggest that Weta were very cautious of upsetting everyone who love the work and approached it with humility and a desire to be open to such people (and the long standing artists such as Lee and Nasmith as you mention) the opposite was true of the Amazon team. Let’s move fast and break things, eh guys?

There was quite a good interview with Sibley about all this a while ago - I’ll try and find it, he was very guarded but you could read between the lines.

 

[scubachap]

If the Estate of such works was worried about their stewardship of this source material, it seems like there is a choice to preserve some standards or just take the money. Does the estate have any artistic say over anything Amazon does with their purchased rights, I wonder.

Now that Christopher is dead I think it’s now a ‘fill your boots’ approach. Pay the money and do what you will…

 

[martint235]

I didn’t actually mind Rings of Power too much but it was a cash grab. Basically after the success of LOTR on film it was “what else did he write?” The Hobbit was at least a book, RoP was based on a collection of essays, scribbles and hints.

 

[wonderings]

Rings of Power did not really do it for me, did not get past Season 1, but watched the whole thing. It’s likely the magic is gone. Maybe, I’ll break out the Hobbit…to resurrect it. 😊

There is no magic in Rings of Power. They completely ignored source material and the world Tolkien created. Personally I say stick with the books, movies will just be poor reflections of the masterpiece that was pen to paper. When a show advertises things like "all female directors" you know their focus is way off base. Not because female directors are good or bad, but because who cares? What is important is the story not who directed it.

 

[Mousse]

There is no magic in Rings of Power. They completely ignored source material and the world Tolkien created.

That ain't cool.

Personally I say stick with the books, movies will just be poor reflections of the masterpiece that was pen to paper.

Unless it's based on actual events in the book, I don't mind. If it's called Lords of the Ring, don't stray from the book. Since it's called Rings of Power, I don't mind events that never occurred in the book so long as they stay in universe and characters don't act out of character. I would be cool with Samwise wearing 10 rings of power at the same time.😁 Him being able to tap into all 10 rings at the same time would be...nope. Not even DnD rules allows for that. Fan fiction is fun.

When a show advertises things like "all female directors" you know their focus is way off base. Not because female directors are good or bad, but because who cares? What is important is the story not who directed it.

IMO, the director is just as important as the script. The director interprets the script, like how a conductor interprets a musical score when they direct a orchestra. Micheal Bay, for instance, focuses way too much on explosions. Whereas Stanley Kubrick has a lot of photographic artistry in his film.😍😎

 

[GrumpyCoder]

Rings of Power did not really do it for me, did not get past Season 1, but watched the whole thing. It’s likely the magic is gone. Maybe, I’ll break out the Hobbit…to resurrect it. 😊

Season 1 was painful to watch. Season 2 was better. If they can keep raising the bar, Season 3 should be really good. And from there on... who knows.

 

[wonderings]

That ain't cool.

Unless it's based on actual events in the book, I don't mind. If it's called Lords of the Ring, don't stray from the book. Since it's called Rings of Power, I don't mind events that never occurred in the book so long as they stay in universe and characters don't act out of character. I would be cool with Samwise wearing 10 rings of power at the same time.😁 Him being able to tap into all 10 rings at the same time would be...nope. Not even DnD rules allows for that. Fan fiction is fun.

IMO, the director is just as important as the script. The director interprets the script, like how a conductor interprets a musical score when they direct a orchestra. Micheal Bay, for instance, focuses way too much on explosions. Whereas Stanley Kubrick has a lot of photographic artistry in his film.😍😎

Just like the dwarves and the hobbit were not supposed to leave the path in Mirkwood, Amazon did the very same thing and the whole story suffers for it. I don't get too upset though as they can't change the best version of Lord of the Rings and that is the books. Goes for any movie adaptation, they will never do justice to the source material.

I agree the director is important to the script, but advertising "all female directors" is not advertising that you have great directors (they didn't). You are advertising DEI, which is what the show does best and why it suffers like all the other movies and shows that shovel this in no matter if it makes sense to the story or not.

 

[Huntn]

There is no magic in Rings of Power. They completely ignored source material and the world Tolkien created. Personally I say stick with the books, movies will just be poor reflections of the masterpiece that was pen to paper. When a show advertises things like "all female directors" you know their focus is way off base. Not because female directors are good or bad, but because who cares? What is important is the story not who directed it.

I regard the LOTR trilogy as an excellent adaption from book to film. Yes there are always compromises, and the magic, well that is made in your head. 🙂

 

[Huntn]

That ain't cool.

Unless it's based on actual events in the book, I don't mind. If it's called Lords of the Ring, don't stray from the book. Since it's called Rings of Power, I don't mind events that never occurred in the book so long as they stay in universe and characters don't act out of character. I would be cool with Samwise wearing 10 rings of power at the same time.😁 Him being able to tap into all 10 rings at the same time would be...nope. Not even DnD rules allows for that. Fan fiction is fun.

IMO, the director is just as important as the script. The director interprets the script, like how a conductor interprets a musical score when they direct a orchestra. Micheal Bay, for instance, focuses way too much on explosions. Whereas Stanley Kubrick has a lot of photographic artistry in his film.😍😎

There is at least one exception for Micheal Bay. I regard The Island as a favorite, remake of Logan’s Run with a meaningful significant build up, then some excellent action sequences, not over the top imo. However I also loved The Transformers, the early ones, but you have to be into the genre. Yet, I do not like it when the action is so fast and large, it’s hard for your eyes and brain to register what it’s seeing. This happened in some of the transformer fights.

One reason why I’m so fond of Alita Battle Angel is besides the story, because what could have been overwhelmingly frantic, the Motorball competition was kept visually manageable.

Warning: This is the climax of the movie​

 

[scubachap]

On the subject of the director's influence - Guillermo del Toro's Hobbit might have been better than the Hobbit we got. I understand he was going to do it as two films and stick much more to Tolkien's children's book aesthetic, particularly in the first of the films...

 

[Scepticalscribe]

......

I agree the director is important to the script, but advertising "all female directors" is not advertising that you have great directors (they didn't). You are advertising DEI, which is what the show does best and why it suffers like all the other movies and shows that shovel this in no matter if it makes sense to the story or not.

Whether or not it is "advertising DEI", (and one could argue that to do so may be considered daring in the context of the current cultural climate in the country where it has been made), to my mind, one of the failings of the source material is how atrociously badly female characters are rendered, and written, that is, when women put in an appearance at all.

Tolkien was a true original in a number of ways, but he couldn't write women for toffee.

Thus, I would argue that a female director might actually come up with a perspective - o perspectives - that may have escaped the individuals referred to (in the works of a different member of The Inklings) as Sons of Adam.

 

[wonderings]

Whether or not it is "advertising DEI", (and one could argue that to do so may be considered daring in the context of the current cultural climate in the country where it has been made), to my mind, one of the failings of the source material is how atrociously badly female characters are rendered, and written, that is, when women put in an appearance at all.

Tolkien was a true original in a number of ways, but he couldn't write women for toffee.

Thus, I would argue that a female director might actually come up with a perspective - o perspectives - that may have escaped the individuals referred to (in the works of a different member of The Inklings) as Sons of Adam.

It is without a doubt identity politics.

I have heard the criticism before regarding female characters. I don't think shoe horning in ideas that do not fit with what he created helps or adds anything. As seen already Rings of Power is a failure, low watching numbers that go down as the seasons progress. The animated one that was out, turning the whole story into something completely different to make a female character who had no name. If you really want strong female characters maybe it is best to try original content or find another author who gives people who want that. I am guessing they don't because the viewing numbers would be even lower. Lord of the Rings sucks in people no matter what the content so they have an immediate audience, or potential audience at least.

When story telling is chained to politics in anyway it is severely limited. Needing to have representation forces the writers in a direction, they now have to not only make a world that fits in with Tolkiens, they have to change that world to make it make sense with all the inclusion stuff, which it doesn't. This is why you have supposed hero being so disliked and leaving you with no one really to root for, on top of all the other poor writing.